One Slip [resubmit]

I haven’t seen the previous post, so forgive me if you’ve considered this suggestion already.

When I look at the Amazon top 100 for literary fiction, the trend that jumps out to me is having the title really big. I’d suggest using the same font treatment as the second image in the post above, but putting it on two lines and enlarging it, like so (I just grabbed the title from the picture and enlarged it on the Depositphotos photo, so it’s pretty gnarly looking, but you get the idea):

The author name still feel amateur, for want of a better description. If you look on Amazon, you’ll see that a lot of shorter author names have larger kerning–the space between the letters–to make a bigger impact. I did that above. I’m not happy with the serif font; if I were designing this, I’d try a sans-serif, but the example is to just give you an inkling of what I’m talking about.

Very nicely done! I agree with our host, though, that the variant he selected is just a teensy bit better: specifically, the slight distressing of the title makes it look like the ocean waves are about to swallow it… sort of like how they almost swallowed the poor kid whose lingering death is driving the plot of this story, wouldn’t you agree? Nothing quite conveys the ocean’s menace like having it seemingly attacking the fourth wall this way.

Also, the overturned toy bucket is good and gets the point across, but don’t hesitate to try out some variants of this cover with other objects: a punctured flotation device lying deflated on the beach, for instance, or an abandoned pair of child-sized swim trunks floating in a shallow puddle might drive the point home even further.

I also prefer the version that Nathan noted, and yes, I’d suggest making the title larger, and ensure that the distressing is quite obvious. Something about the purply-shade of the newly-submitted cover is off-putting to me.

I do prefer Nathan’s selection for a few reasons. Like others say, the title treatment works better. I noted before that a super popular way to signal ‘classy/iterary fiction is to have the title typography interacting with / somewhat disappearing into the artwork. The example does that well, the treatment hinting ominously at the central plot point.

I think a sans-serif/capitalised treatment also works better.

However, I do think the blue used there is too warm and friendly. The other more lavender-skewing blue creates more of a sense of tension.

I also feel that the byline is too heavy on Nathan’s selection and there’s an awkard relationship between it and the title. One of the very basic tenets of design is ‘visual hierarchy’. You need to make sure you are directing your viewers’ eyes to the right things in the right order. On this cover ‘Gregg Bell’ and ‘One Slip’ are too equal in eight/eye-catchingness and it throws everything off. You have a better baance on the large image where ‘Gregg Bell’ is smaller.